Posted on 08/01/2004 4:37:36 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Most people aren’t scientists but nonetheless accept scientific orthodoxy, such as evolution. Without being able to explain the details, they accept that humans evolved from earlier species without supernatural assistance. Ask those same folks if an ion-powered rotary engine could evolve, and they’ll snicker.
Show them that the little whips — the technical term is “flagellum” — some bacteria use to move around are driven by ion-powered rotary engines capable of more than 10,000 rpm, with bearings and other parts made of intricate combinations of protein molecules. Some will start to wonder: Could something like this really have evolved?
Board of Evolution?
That question is a big one — maybe the central one — in the State Board of Education campaign in north-central Kansas. The primary election is Tuesday.
Incumbent Bruce Wyatt of Salina ran for the state board in 2000, partially on a platform of reversing the board’s controversial 1999 decision to reduce the role of evolution in our public schools’ science classrooms. That was done, and now Wyatt is challenged by retired teacher Kathy Martin of Clay Center, who has pledged to work to reinstate those 1999 standards. Those standards, she said “de-emphasized teaching monkey-to-man evolution as fact.”
The field is one in which a Ph.D. is a starting point. Neither Wyatt nor Martin is a scientist.
Wyatt said this past week that the question is a complex academic issue and that the board should “trust the experts, the scientists we asked to come up with the standards.”
Martin, however, says that “many” scientists now question evolution and that new advances in biochemistry and mathematics suggest alternative conclusions. Those alternative theories, especially “intelligent design,” she maintains, should have a fair hearing.
What is ‘intelligent design’?
“I see intelligent design as a scientific hypothesis to explain some of the complexity we see in the cell that we’ve discovered in the past 50 years or so,” said biochemist Michael Behe, professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, author of the 1996 book “Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution” and a leading proponent of intelligent design.
“In Darwin’s day, the cell was thought to be a pretty simple thing — just a blob of goo — and that it would be easy to get first life,” he said. “They’re really molecular machines. There are little molecular trucks and buses, carrying supplies from one part of the cell to the other; there are molecular roads, even molecular road signs.”
Systems that complex, Behe maintains, can’t work until they’re complete — in other words, the “road signs” in his metaphor would be useless without the “trucks and buses,” which in turn wouldn’t be able to move without the “roads.” Such a system would have to be complete from its inception, Behe said, because a cell couldn’t live without all of those integrated systems up and running.
The principle is called “irreducible complexity,” meaning the system couldn’t be reduced by even one part and still work. That bacteria flagellum and the rotary motor that powers it are an example of a system that couldn’t have evolved gradually, Behe and other intelligent design advocates say. The 30-something different proteins that make up the motor, the driveshaft, bearings and so on, would be useless unless completely assembled.
A simpler example of irreducible complexity Behe sometimes points to is a mousetrap: If any parts are missing — the spring, the hammer or the base — it won’t be able to catch any mice.
Kenneth Miller sometimes sports a tie clip made from the spring of a mousetrap. The professor of biology at Brown University has written several books and essays countering the intelligent design arguments. He also has testified against its inclusion in state curriculums in Ohio and Kansas. He also is co-author of the high school textbook Biology,” which was used by the Salina schools from 1996 to 2001 and still is used widely in Kansas.
Miller’s tie clip is intended to prove a point — parts of the mousetrap can be put to other uses. Likewise, he said, the various parts of the bacteria flagellum can be found elsewhere in the cell, adapted to other uses. That includes the ion-driven rotary motor, which is found working as a pump elsewhere in the cell, helping convert one chemical to another for use as fuel.
Behe, writing in theWall Street Journal in February, countered that “the existence of the ability to pump protein tells us nil about how the rotary propulsion function might come to be in a Darwinian fashion.”
Miller agrees that no “step-by-step account” of how the flagellum evolved exists — yet — but says the intelligent design argument is that such an evolution is theoretically impossible, while he’s shown that it could happen.
Intelligent design proponents cite other examples in nature as well, such as the complex structure of microtubes, spokes and support rings in the tail of a sperm cell — but Miller points out that eel sperm lack many of those parts and still work just fine. A related mathematical argument is that the probability of the 30-plus proteins in the flagellum evolving on their own is almost zero; Miller’s response is that almost zero isn’t zero — and that no one thinks it happened all at once anyway.
Despite the disagreement, Behe said, the bottom line is that there’s genuine science underlying the intelligent design movement — it’s not just based on a literal reading of the creation story in the Bible.
“For the record, I have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say it is. Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing and have no particular reason to doubt it,” Behe wrote in “Darwin’s Black Box.” “I fairly respect the work of colleagues who study the development and behavior of organisms within an evolutionary framework, and I think the evolutionary biologists have contributed enormously to our understanding of the world. Although Darwin’s mechanism — natural selection working on variation — might explain many things, however, I do not believe it explains molecular life.”
He also said he doesn’t dispute “monkey to man evolution” but questions whether the evidence is conclusive. Asked whether he thinks current species — humans included — were created just as they exist today, he answered with a simple “no.”
“The fundamental difference — if I can say ‘fundamental’ — is that creationists are motivated by religious considerations,” Behe said. “Intelligent design is motivated by scientific ones. We don’t start with Genesis — we say here’s what we find in science.”
Science...
“Intelligent design is creationism in a cheap tuxedo,” said Leonard Krishtalka, director of the Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. “They’re either fooling themselves or trying to fool other people.”
The arguments about irreducible complexity, and the probability claims, as well, “are nothing new — just resurrected and couched in new lingo.”
“Intelligent design is a resurrection of ‘natural theology’ from the 19th century,” said Arthur Neuburger, professor of biology at Kansas Wesleyan University.
Many trace irreducible complexity back to English theologian William Paley, who wrote that the presence of a watch indicates a watchmaker — and that living creatures are much more complex, so must also have been made. Paley published “Natural Theology” in 1802 and died 55 years before publication of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.” The same kind of reasoning appears in the 1st century B.C. writings of Roman statesman Cicero, in “de Natura Deorum” translated as “The Nature of the Gods.” The idea of evolution, too, has long roots, back at least to ancient Greece.
At its core, intelligent design is “about the God of the gaps — using God to fill in the gaps in our knowledge,” Neuburger said. “If you expect to have every step in the sequence before you believe in evolution, you’ll never believe in evolution,” he said. “It’s ridiculous to think we’ll ever have a complete sequence.”
Appealing to something outside of natural law to explain anything that can’t currently be explained “is literally not science,” Neuburger said. The process of science, he said, is explaining things that at one time couldn’t be explained. And in fact, it’s bad for science, he said. “It’s saying, ‘Stop the inquiry, because it won’t do any good,’ ” he said.
“Let’s suppose it’s 100 years ago,” Miller said. “We see the sun emits a certain amount of light and heat, we know how big it is. It’s inexplicable in terms of science — it could not, for example, be burning coal or burning oil; it couldn’t be any kind of chemical reaction, which were the only reactions known. And it’s not getting smaller, which it would do if it were burning. “The conclusion could have been that it is supernatural. Just a decade later, we started finding out about nuclear reactions.”
Intelligent design also lacks “peer review,” Krishtalka said. Peer review is the standard in science; researchers submit articles to niche publications, such as the Journal of Molecular Biology. Experts in the field then review the articles and either approve them, reject them or suggest changes.
Behe has had some three dozen research papers published in peer-reviewed publications such as the Journal of Molecular Biology. “He has been published in many journals,” Krishtalka allowed, “but not in the field of irreducible complexity.
“It’s not uncommon to find engineers or biochemists as spokespeople — stepping way outside their areas of expertise. They’ll use anybody they can get. A common ploy is to bring in a so-called professional in one area to proclaim in another area in which they’re not qualified.”
“It’s carefully crafted to have the look and feel of science,” Miller said.
But Behe says the peer-review system tends to enforce orthodoxy. “I don’t think intelligent design does get a fair hearing in mainstream science,” he said. “The people who write about it in mainstream science are often set on eradicating it. The idea is not treated as something that’s ‘interesting, but I don’t think it’s true’ — it’s met with an emotional intensity that belies the claim that they’re taking a scientific approach.”
[PH here: what follows is a really dumb paragraph.]
And the peer review process isn’t perfect. Thirty years ago, Stephen Hawking’s theories on black holes helped make him the world’s most famous living theoretical physicist. Two weeks ago, Hawking announced he was wrong.
What that shows is the healthy progress of science, Krishtalka said. Hawking’s reversal “proves that science works,” Krishtalka said, “adding to its knowledge base and improving and refining that knowledge base. It’s a process of retesting, reobserving and refining — as opposed to dogma or religion, which are static and, to use a phrase, do not evolve through time ... the story of Genesis has not changed. “That’s the power of science — knowledge grows and changes.”
Neuberger is willing to allow for the possibility that evolutionary theory is wrong but said nothing in current science undermines it. “I tell my students at the beginning of the semester that we’re going to talk about evolution as if it’s true,” he said. “Science does change.” At the same time, he said, “people have been trying — with great motivation — for over a century to show evolution isn’t true, and they haven’t succeeded.”
Behe thinks intelligent design “will become more accepted in time. Fifty years ago, Darwinism looked more believeable than it does today.”
All agree the dispute’s “emotional intensity” makes it unique among scientific controversies — and the only one constantly surfacing in the political arena.
... and politics
Kansas’ 1999 standards didn’t proscribe teaching evolution and didn’t elevate intelligent design over it. Rather, those standards more innocuously allowed for both. In other states, too, the appeal often is to give all theories a fair hearing or equal time.
Miller says it’s misleading even for the debates he sometimes participates in to include equal numbers of scientists for and against evolution, because that leaves audiences with the impression there’s two roughly equal “sides” to the issue.
“These theories are not equal,” Krishtalka said. “You would give equal time to equal things.” Demanding equal time for intelligent design in science class, Krishtalka said, “is like demanding equal time for the flat-Earth theory in geology or the stork theory of reproduction in a biology class.”
Both find the relative scientific merits are ignored when weighed on political scales.
“After everything else, our education system is a political process,” Krishtalka said. “They’re using the political process to make their gains as opposed to demonstrating that they have science worth teaching.”
“I think fair treatment for intelligent design would be for it to go through the scientific process before it’s injected into the classroom through the political process,” Miller said.
He says the workings of the free market are an apt comparison to what happens in science: “It’s a free marketplace of ideas. There’s no entrance fee, no ticket, anybody can take part. But what wins the day is evidence — anybody can have a new and novel idea. “Intelligent design hasn’t been able to win in the scientific marketplace and so is looking for support from the government. It’s an intellectual subsidy.”
If intelligent design supporters were interested in science, Miller said, they’d follow the path taken many times before by what he calls “maverick scientists.”
An example is Peter Duesberg, professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley, who believes the HIV virus isn’t what causes AIDS. “I think he’s full of it,” Miller said. “But he’s working to marshal the evidence — doing what a good scientist does, spending time in the lab, going to conferences, trying to win over colleagues. What he’s not doing is going to school boards and trying to get his ideas put into textbooks.”
But unlike other scientific controversies, looking at the origins of life “uncovers knowledge that makes people feel uncomfortable,” Krishtalka said.
“This touches people and who they are,” Neuburger said. “Some people just don’t want to believe they’re evolved from so-called lower forms of life.”
More specifically, evolution seems to challenge the word of God. “Many members of the public who find intelligent design appealing are those who take Genesis literally,” Miller said. “They see intelligent design as rescuing those ideas.”
Faith
Yet many scientists say there’s no contradiction between a strong faith in God and accepting evolution — and some even say theories such as intelligent design could undermine faith.
“God and evolution are just as compatible as God and (the planet) Jupiter, or God and relativity,” Krishtalka said. “Intelligent design is disrespectful to both religion and science. Instead of bashing science, why aren’t they revering humans and our intellectual capabilities as a fantastic act of creation?”
Among Miller’s works is the 2000 book “Finding Darwin’s God: A Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution,” and he readily admits how life originated remains a mystery. “Could life have been the result of a miracle? I’d say sure,” Miller said. “I’d also say the ’69 Mets were a miracle. We have a basketful of unanswered questions. As a Christian, I wouldn’t stake my faith on science never figuring this out. Science has a history of figuring things out.
“I think, and lots of scientists who are Christians think, the Darwinian model of evolution through common descent, using the laws of chemistry and physics — the notion of the single of life on Earth starting from a single spark fits much better with the story of Genesis than intelligent design does. There have been 23 different species of elephants in the past 5 million years. If you take the designer model, you have a designer that designed 23 species, 21 of which have gone extinct. Two for 23 won’t even get you into single-A baseball. This makes you think, ‘What is He thinking?’ or ‘How incompetent can He be?’ and you have a designer who’s constantly having to putz around with his creation.”
Miller carries that same theme further in an essay he contributed for the recently published book “Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA.”
“I do not believe, even for an instant, that Darwin’s vision has weakened or diminished the sense of wonder and awe that one should feel in confronting the majesty and diversity of the living world,” he wrote. “Rather, to a person of faith, it should enhance their sense of the Creator’s majesty and wisdom. Against such a backdrop, the struggles of the intelligent design movement are best understood as clamorous and disappointing double failures — rejected by science because they do not fit the facts and having failed religion because they think too little of God.”
Underscore and bold font added by your humble poster, in a probably misguided attempt to highlight names and significant statements.
I predict we'll have the following in the first 100 posts: "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" "Let's just give the students all the facts and let them decide for themselves." "What are evolutionists so afraid of?"
ping
Just my opinion.
Well, it would be evolution, if true, but not Darwinian evolution. It would be an example of Lamarckism. Think about it: what is the mechanism for that trait to be passed on? In Darwinism, the mechanism is the deaths (or failure to breed) of the spaniels without the trait. Correct me if I'm wrong, but spaniels don't routinely die (or lose their breeding ability) from the tail-bobbing procedure.
I'm a little handicapped when it comes to Darwin and his theory. I live 18 miles from Dayton (monkey trial place) and when I was in school nobody even talked about evolution. It was, and still is, taboo for the most part. The only thing I know is what I've read on my own so most people know more than I do. :-) I'm fascinated by it though. I like to believe that the stories in the Bible and the facts of science can both be true. Science is always trying to prove or disprove events from the Bible.
I'm a scientist, and I just don't see it. I'd say it's more the case that science and religion happen to cover a few topics in common. Very few scientists consider the Bible at all in the course of their work. It just isn't relevant, let it be right or wrong. Science is about the way the universe is, and not about what somebody says it is.
A GOOGLE search using "Grand Canyon controversy" will reveal an interesting group of sites relating to Tom Vail's recent book on the Grand Canyon and the resulting efforts to get it off the National Park Service book shelf.
Why must intelligent challenges to the evolution theory be censored?
For more information, visit Vail's site at: http://www.canyonministries.com/index_files/Controversy.htm
Yet another example of the unceasing dumb science examples that are supposed to convince by the argument "that is impossible so therefore I am right".
After that one is refuted somewhere there will be another and another. You need to prove your own case, whatever that may be.
Nothing is being censored loveliberty2. You can say whatever you want, in pulpits, in Sunday school, in magazines or in forums like this. Please do not confuse the well deserved derision you recieve from censorship. Once again, the creationist science course would be the shortest one ever given on any campus. GOD DID IT. Go home.
Intellegent challenges to evolution theory have actually been going on for nearly two centuries now. It is called science itself. The fact that every single moronic assertion that someone somewhere makes is ignored is not reason for paranoia. It would be a futile fools game to try.
Once again the burden of proof is on the talker.
The question should not be whether "most people" know the answers to some tough technical issue if you stop them on the street and hit them with it out of the blue. The people Jay Leno stops on the streets of New York couldn't find Asia on a map.
Or LA. I don't think Tonight has been in NY on a regular basis since the Carson era (first half).
"Nothing is being censored...."
We must not be naive about "censorship."
Of course, we have censorship! Consult the editing room of any textbook publisher in America.
Our Constitution does not exclude from the public square the kinds of discussions and exchanges of ideas which you seem to believe are relegated to "Sunday school" and other designated arenas.
Rather, America's Founders believed that if ideas were freely debated and exchanged, then truth would more likely be discovered.
No one is threatened by having the ability to purchase a book on the creationist view of the Grand Canyon at a National Park Service store. Neither are school children threatened by challenging and debating such ideas in a classroom.
If such ideas are mere drivel and foolish, then they will be revealed as such. If not, then perhaps they deserve a hearing. To prevent it is to violate liberty. Which ideas will be banned from discussion after that?
The lefties have their own brand of pseudo-science. It's called socialism (or communism, or "social justice," or "caring-sharing," or "niceness," or whatever other codeword they're currently using to cloak their motives). Socialism makes no sense and never did. It's a proven disaster whenever it's put into practice, compared to free market economics. But the true believers have convinced themselves that their position is "scientific" and "intellectual."
Alas for the lefties, that's pretty much their whole world. They don't stand for much else. At least conservatives have the Constitution, limited government, free enterprise, etc. If some creationists are attracted to conservatism, that's fine, we'll take their votes; but it's a huge mistake to pander to such nonsense. And it's a gigantic error to imagine that creationists are the whole ball-o-wax. They're an embarrassment to any party, but I guess we've got them.
hey, get with the program. no one, not even lefties, has embraced communism for 14 years. it's a utopian failure, like you say. but didn't you get the memo? nowadays, lefties should be compared to terrorists. terrorism is the new communism.
ID is in fact purely a political movement, acting mostly in schoolboard textbook review meetings around the country. It postures as a movement within science but does nothing in that arena and has nothing to offer there in any event.
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